Intrigued, bewitched, moved, perplexed or bored, the visitors planted in droves every day in front of the works of the Musée d'Orsay, offer their remarks.
Within the institution, the days follow each other and resemble each other like an immutable ritual.
At night, another story is played out.
In the half-light of the imposing Parisian building with rediscovered serenity, silhouettes come to life and voices rise.
Gustave Caillebotte's Parquet Planers leave the painting to stretch their legs, the sculptures come down from their pedestals, the busts of Honoré Daumier start chatting, becoming funny gossips with a biting wit,
the
Olympia
of Manet leaves his legendary bed... At night, at the Musée d'Orsay, a life teems with works of art taken out of their frame, to take stock of the day...
"
It simply tells what the watched say about the viewers, what the paintings and sculptures tell about what they see
," author Christophe Chabouté told AFP after a press visit. at the Musée d'Orsay.
In
Museum
, he masterfully stages this reversal of roles to the delight of the reader.
The small clay sculptures of the caricaturist Honoré Daumier are transformed into tasty gossips, at nightfall.
Chabouté/ West Winds
From his line to the precision of an engraver supported by an intense black and white contrasting the white of the paper with the flat tints of black, Chabouté sets a captivating decor enriched with a gallery of colorful characters.
Visitors with inept or insipid comments, people setting themselves up as critics whose discourse approaches rigmarole, unbearable kids, characters chaining the aisles at a run without taking the time to appreciate the works, teachers trying to interest their students ... Not without humor and with keen observation, the author offers a wide range of attitudes and reactions of the beings who stroll between the works of the Musée d'Orsay.
In the night, as soon as the doors of the museum are closed, the works of art come to life and question each other.
Chabouté/ West Winds
Most of the boards illustrating the daytime life of the institution are silent, the floor being given more broadly to the works that wake up at night.
Tongues are loosened and comments are going well.
Coming from another time, most have a perplexed look at this heterogeneous society that they observe all day long.
"This evening, a man stopped under the big clock ... and he asked the time"
, wonders the bronze gladiator by Jean-Léon Gérôme from the top of the glass roof of the museum.
In this reflection, a form of absurdity emerges in these people who
“always go fast, very fast”.
These animated works live the night
,
a suspended time inviting more contemplation.
Take the time to look, to savor, to feel, to dream, to take a break from the frenzy, the overflow.
Implicitly, Christophe Chabouté invites the reader to try.
A moving album,
Musée
strongly inspires the desire to run and contemplate these works to listen to what they have to say.
Museum,
Christophe Chabouté, Winds of the West, 23 euros.
